Is the ecological redirection possible? An ALife perspective on sociocultural evolution in the Anthropocene

We attempt here to assess the possibility of reorganizing contemporary societies toward the coupled imperatives of fulfilling human needs while respecting planetary boundaries. We first show that social organization respects the property of (biological) autonomy, and suggest a principled manner to describe social change. We conclude an “ecological redirection” is possible, but necessitates an overall reorganization of social activity around lower scale, dynamic forms of organization.